1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fishing lures, and more particularly, to lures having a rigid body to which one or more hooks are attached, and in the case of the present invention, to which an elongated, flexible, resilient streamer element is secured.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Before and since the days of Isaac Walton, anglers of every degree of competence and expertise have endeavored to contrive baits and lures which will attract and catch various members of the finny tribe. In more recent times, with the increase of leisure time available to the average individual, industries have been founded upon the manufacture and sale of effective fish baits and lures. Success in such enterprises has been found to depend not merely on the offering of lures which will attract and catch fish, but also upon the development of lures which appeal to the fishermen who constitute the market for them. In some instances, the latter desideratum has prevailed over the former in determining the success with which a given lure has met when first offered.
The types of baits and lures now most widely marketed and used can be thought of as broadly divisible into several classes or types. One of these can be called plugs or hard body lures. These lures generally include a body constructed of a rigid material, such as wood or plastic, and further include one or more hooks suspended from the body. The body is usually designed with two major characteristics or properties in mind. These are the aesthetic and functional appearance of the lure body (to both the fish and the fisherman), and the action which is characteristic of the lure as it is fished. As to appearance, the lure body is often made to resemble a minnow or small fish upon which the game fish to be caught by the lure often feed. Other shapes have also been found effective for the attraction of fish.
With respect to the action of the hard body lure in the water, efforts are often directed to the provision of hydrofoils on the body which will cause the lure to simulate the swimming action of some sort of live forage. Various actions are thought to be attractive to various species of fish. In a popular type of lure now marketed, a spoon, bill or diving plane is provided on the forward portion of a streamlined, fish-shaped lure body, and a lure attachment eyelet is secured in the forward end of the lure body. The lure body, in such cases, is often made of a relatively light or buoyant material, or is designed to include a hollow air space in the interior of the lure which allows the lure body to float when it is in a state or at-rest status. During the retrieve of the lure through the water by reeling in or pulling on the line attached to the eyelet at the nose or forward end thereof, such lures will frequently undergo a diving action, or a combined diving and floating action with the lure seeking a greater depth as it is pulled, and then floating to the surface as the tension on the retrieving line is relieved. These types of floater-diver lures have been very successful, in many instances, in catching such fish as bass, trout, crappie, salmon and the like. Another related version has a rigid body which is designed to allow the lure to be retrieved while remaining at some depth below the surface of the water, and which does not float at rest.
Another type or category of lure which is widely used by present-day fishermen are lures constructed of an elastomeric, rubbery-like material which is capable of flexing and wiggling movement as the lure is moved through the water on retrieve. These types of lures are sometimes referred to as worms as a result of their resemblence to elongated, oversized earthworms, but in other instances, have been molded to provide a shape resembling a crayfish, a small minnow or various other types of forage species constituting the food sources of various game fish.
The two types or categories of lures described are generally represented in every fisherman's repertoire of baits, and each has its advocates, and each is recognized as having effectiveness when certain species of fish are the object of the fisherman.
One of the types of baits formed of elastomeric material which has recently achieved success is an elongated, relatively thin strip of an elastic, synthetic resin material such as polyvinyl chloride, which strip is formed by molding so as to have a crenulation in one side edge of the strip, or is formed with one of the side edges of shorter length than the other, with a resulting curvature existing over the length of the strip. This curved elastomeric strip, when pulled through the water on retrieve, undergoes distortion such that the portion of the strip adjacent the relatively long side edge of the strip is placed in compression, or is wrinkled as the strip tends to be straightened out. The elastic deformation thus effected then results in a reaction which whips the strip back in the opposite direction, tending to relieve the compression loading. This sequence of distortion loading in one direction, following by whipping or lashing back in the opposite direction, is repeated with a fairly constant period of oscillation during a constant retrieve - that is, a retrieve in which the tension on the lure is constant. The result is a motion in the water which is relatively regular, and which resembles a swimming worm or minnow species. The action has been found to be quite attractive to many types of fish.